Articles | Volume 18, issue 18
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-6313-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-6313-2025
Methods for assessment of models
 | 
25 Sep 2025
Methods for assessment of models |  | 25 Sep 2025

Constraining CMIP6 sea ice simulations with ICESat-2

Alek Petty, Christopher Cardinale, and Madison Smith

Related authors

The Arctic Radiation-Cloud-Aerosol-Surface Interaction Experiment (ARCSIX) airborne campaign dataset
Patrick C. Taylor, Armin Sorooshian, Rei Ueyama, Sebastian Schmidt, Ihab Abboud, Quincy Allison, Kevin Barry, Sebastian Becker, Holly A. Bender, Joseph R. Bennett, James B. Blair, Niklas Bohn, Linette Boisvert, Matthew D. Brown, Roelof Bruintjes, Anthony Bucholtz, Megan Buzanowicz, Brian Cairns, Filippo Calì Quaglia, Eduard Chemyakin, Bo Chen, Gao Chen, Hong Chen, Yu-Wen Chen, Zezhen Cheng, Swarup China, Dan Chirica, Yonghoon Choi, Peter Colarco, Brian Collister, Ewan Crosbie, Maurice J. Cross, Janet Daniels, Paul DeMott, Joshua P. DiGangi, Alcide Giorgio di Sarra, Glenn S. Diskin, Erica K. Dolinar, Eva-Lou Edwards, Samuel Ephraim, Nikolaos Evangeliou, Romanos Foskinis, Francesca Gallo, Lan Gao, José Luis Gómez-Amo, Daisy Gonzalez, Christine Groot Zwaaftink, Pawan Gupta, Ivan Heckman, Michael Hendrickson, Miguel Ricardo A. Hilario, Ken Hirata, Michelle Hofton, Andrew L. Holen, Ulas Im, Alia L. Khan, Ralph Kahn, Alexei V. Korolev, Sonia Kreidenweis, Thomas Krumpen, Nathan Kurtz, Leslie Lait, Bradley Lamkin, Jack Landy, Nurun Nahar Lata, Paul Lawson, Samuel LeBlanc, Sean Leavor, Jing Li, Thorsten Markus, Hal Maring, Andreas H. Massling, Camille Mavis, Flynn McGinnity, Kerry Meyer, Gabriel Mojica, Richard H. Moore, Parker Morris, Giovanni Muscari, Vikas Nataraja, Amin R. Nehrir, Athanasios Nenes, Edward P. Nowottnick, Matteo Ottaviani, Chelsea Parker, Ryan Patnaude, Michael Perez, Russell J. Perkins, Colten Peterson, Alek Petty, Stevie Phothisane, Chris Polashenski, Kerri A. Pratt, Kayla M. Preisler, John Prytherch, David Rabine, Jens Redemann, Ju-Mee Ryoo, Joseph S. Schlosser, Vanessa Selimovic, Michael A. Shook, Morgan Silverman, Henrik Skov, Alexander Smirnov, Cassidy Soloff, Amy Solomon, Snorre Stamnes, Azusa Takeishi, David R. Thompson, K. Lee Thornhill, Rachel Tilling, Michael Tjernström, Monica Tosco, Pedro C. Valdelomar, David Van Gilst, Jian Wang, Zhien Wang, Andrzej Wasilewski, Manfred Wendisch, Brent Wilder, Edward L. Winstead, Albert Wu, Peng Xian, Lauren M. Zamora, Jiaoshi Zhang, Lei Zhang, Lu Zhang, Luke Ziemba, and Paquita Zuidema
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-241,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-241, 2026
Preprint under review for ESSD
Short summary
Anticipating CRISTAL: an exploration of multi-frequency satellite altimeter snow depth estimates over Arctic sea ice, 2018–2023
Jack C. Landy, Claude de Rijke-Thomas, Carmen Nab, Isobel Lawrence, Isolde A. Glissenaar, Robbie D. C. Mallett, Renée M. Fredensborg Hansen, Alek Petty, Michel Tsamados, Amy R. Macfarlane, and Anne Braakmann-Folgmann
The Cryosphere, 20, 183–208, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-183-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-183-2026, 2026
Short summary
Biases, Uncertainties, and Trends in Arctic Sea-Ice Thickness: A Cross-Product Analysis from 1995 to 2023
Valentin Ludwig, Caroline Ribere, Sara Fleury, Christian Haas, Michel Tsamados, Mahmoud El Hajj, Jerome Bouffard, Michele Scagliola, Marion Bocquet, Eric de Boisseson, Vincent Boulenger, Guillaume Boutin, Laurence Connor, Léo Edel, Stefan Hendricks, Ferran Hernández Macià, Marcus Huntemann, Lars Kaleschke, Frank Kauker, Jack Landy, Tom Megain, Alek Petty, Till Soya Rasmussen, Mads Hvid Ribergaard, Robert Ricker, Axel Schweiger, Hoyeon Shi, Xiangshan Tian-Kunze, Donghui Yi, and Alessandro Di Bella
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-6201,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-6201, 2026
Short summary
Estimation of the state and parameters in ice sheet model using an ensemble Kalman filter and Observing System Simulation Experiments
Youngmin Choi, Alek Petty, Denis Felikson, and Jonathan Poterjoy
The Cryosphere, 19, 5423–5444, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-5423-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-5423-2025, 2025
Short summary
On the statistical relationship between sea ice freeboard and C-band microwave backscatter – a case study with Sentinel-1 and Operation IceBridge
Siqi Liu, Shiming Xu, Wenkai Guo, Yanfei Fan, Lu Zhou, Jack Landy, Malin Johansson, Weixin Zhu, and Alek Petty
The Cryosphere, 19, 5175–5199, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-5175-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-5175-2025, 2025
Short summary

Cited articles

Alexandrov, V., Sandven, S., Wahlin, J., and Johannessen, O. M.: The relation between sea ice thickness and freeboard in the Arctic, The Cryosphere, 4, 373–380, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-4-373-2010, 2010. 
Bagnardi, M., Kurtz, N. T., Petty, A. A., and Kwok, R.: Sea Surface Height Anomalies of the Arctic Ocean From ICESat-2: A First Examination and Comparisons With CryoSat-2, Geophys. Res. Lett., 48, e2021GL093155, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093155, 2021. 
Bonan, D. B., Schneider, T., Eisenman, I., and Wills, R. C. J.: Constraining the Date of a Seasonally Ice-Free Arctic Using a Simple Model, Geophys. Res. Lett., 48, e2021GL094309, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL094309, 2021. 
Download
Short summary
We use total freeboard data from NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) across both hemispheres and estimates of winter Arctic sea ice thickness to evaluate climate model simulations of sea ice, providing constraints beyond the traditional sea ice area metric. ICESat-2 provides accurate freeboard data, but its short observational record requires careful consideration of natural variability.
Share